Enlisted

by Nathan Pedde

  “Did you notice that something didn’t happen when you got home last night?”

  “I noticed.”

  “I’ll leave you with that train of thought. You’re done with your classes by three. I expect you in my office by three-thirty. No later. Oh. One more thing. No one knows about our meeting. Don’t discuss it with anyone, even your little girlfriend. Also, don’t get followed.”

  “Elsie is standing right beside me, and she’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Don’t tell anyone else about my phone call,” Kusheeno said. “And Elsie better keep it a secret if you want her Get out of Jail free card to keep.”

  Captain Kusheeno hung up.

  “Jerk,” Des said. “How much did you hear?”

  “All of it,” Elsie replied. “You need to turn your phone’s volume down.”

  “Can you do it though?” Des asked. “Keep a secret?”

  “Yes, but I don’t like this.”

  “Me neither.”

  “I heard about him. That jerk’s holding the disciplinary notice over our heads. It’s rumored he does it to many people.”

  “The people he’s done this to, have any of them ever gotten out of it?” Des asked.

  “No. Not in any of the stories I’ve ever heard.”

  “Great.”

  “I’m sure the stories are vastly exaggerated,” Elsie said.

  “It’s fencing day. I’ve got to get to gym class. Are you going to gym class?”

  “I forgot about gym class.”

  Elsie ran down the hall. Before she disappeared around a corner, Des couldn’t help but look at her bum.

  Ten minutes later, Des was changed into his gym clothes and sitting on a bench in the gymnasium. Elsie sat across from him. She stuck her tongue out at him. Des rolled his eyes. She was older than he was, yet it was hard to tell who the mature one happened to be.

  Mr. Goldhat stood in from of the class. He was a dark-red haired man of small stature. Many of the boys in Des’s class started to tower over the teacher.

  “As a reminder,” Mr. Goldhat continued, adjusting his dark goggles, “the object of fencing is not to beat your opponent into the dust, but to score hits. Five hits and you win the bout. Do you get it?”

  “We get it,” Alix said. “We learned this stuff yesterday.”

  “Yes, and some of your fellow peers,” Mr. Goldhat said, “who shall not be named, insisted on turning this sport into a child’s game.”

  Mr. Goldhat turned, looking at the class. His darkened goggled eyes bore down into their souls.

  “It’s time to suit up.” A single finger shot out at Des. “You’ll face Alix first, and Alix, next time, wear other shoes. Those are not school-appropriate gym shoes.”

  Des glanced at Alix’s shoes. They were a green and purple colored made from a sheer plastic. They were as ugly as they were distracting. Des shook his head. He donned his protective gear, grabbing his mask in one hand. He picked up his practice rapier with the other, walking up to his starting mark.

  “I was thinking about something,” Alix said, stepping up.

  “There’s your first mistake,” Des replied, putting on his mask. “You started thinking.”

  “Funny. I was wondering where Mr. Goldhat got his eyes.”

  Des took up the traditional fighting stance, in his right hand he held the sword pointed toward Alix, his feet made a ‘T’ shape.

  “You think about the weirdest things.”

  Alix took up a similar stance, except Alix’s was looser than it should have been. Des was happy Alix couldn’t see the grin on his face.

  “Mistake number two,” Des muttered.

  “What?” Alix replied.

  “Begin,” Mr. Goldhat yelled.

  Des moved in quickly and lunged a thrust at Alix’s chest. Despite being unprepared, Alix managed to parry Des’s sword away at the last moment.

  “That’s not fair,” Alix said. “I wasn’t ready.”

  Des attacked again, this time he thrust into Alix’s stomach. He tried to block the thrust, but the sword went through, hitting Alix’s padding.

  “One for Des,” Mr. Goldhat announced. “Nice form.”

  Des grinned. His smug grin was hidden by the mesh of the mask.

  Alix attacked Des hard, swinging like a wild man, the sword point reaching for his mask. Des was unprepared for the ferocity of the attack and didn’t get his sword up in time to block. He attempted to move his head out of the way of the sword, but he was too late. The padded sword tip hit Des’s face mask. His head snapped back, and Des heard a loud crunch.

  “Point for Alix.” Mr. Goldhat turned to Alix, “You need to calm down. That thrust was too wild.”

  Stars and spots floated in Des’s vision. He wavered on his feet. As the spots cleared, Des looked at Alix who stood with his sword pointed at Des. He knew his friend was enjoying this and his grin would be ear to ear.

  Des hardened his gaze. He moved in on Alix, knocking away his sword and landing a strike on his Alix’s chest. Des followed up with a second blow that rocked on Alix’s side.

  His head throbbed. Des thrust his sword at Alix’s face. His sword caught nothing. Alix dodged to the side away from Des’s wild jab. With the sword still extended, Des knocked the sword down toward Alix’s helmeted head and rapped the tip on the facemask.

  “That’s four,” Des said.

  Alix jabbed at Des wildly. Des parried the thrust, then rapped Alix’s sword on the blade. The sword clattered to the ground before Des delivered a hard blow to Alix’s facemask.

  “Five,” Des said.

  “Some unorthodox moves there, young Des,” Mr. Goldhat said, applauding. “A win none-the-less,” Mr. Goldhat turned to the other students. “Next.”

  Des sat down, taking off his mask gingerly.

  “Oh snap,” Alix said. “I didn’t mean to hit you that hard.”

  Blood splattered down Des’s face. It dribbled along the bridge of his nose. The inside of his mask had struck his nose and broke the skin at the bridge between his eyes, causing blood to dribble out of his nostrils.

  “Fuck,” Des said, blood spattering on his hand.

  Des sat in the nurse's office. Cotton was shoved up his nostrils, and a butterfly bandage across his nose. He hoped the cut on his nose would leave a scar. However, the nurse insisted the ointment would heal the wound and there would be no signs he had been injured. Des enjoyed the thought of grievous injuries being repaired, but then disliked it at the same moment. Girls loved hard-won scars and a sword fight counted.

  Splattered across the walls were posters of health-related issues. It was like a health fairy threw up in an attempt to decorate the walls. Des stared at a poster showing a diagram of the inside of the ear.

  “All right,” Brightheart said entering the room.

  Nurse Brightheart was an older lady with gray curly hair and a hawkish nose. She looked severe, even mean at times, but she always smiled when it mattered. No matter what the situation might be, or what idiotic act Des might have done that day.

  “How are you doing?” Brightheart asked.

  “It doesn’t seem to want to stop,” Des said referring to his nose bleed.

  “You need to squeeze your nose.”

  Des did so and winced. The ointment would heal the cut, but it would still hurt until it did.

  “You need to rest, squeeze your nose, and let it heal,” Brightheart said. “Just sit tight, I’ll come back in a few minutes to check on you.”

  Des sat alone in his gym clothes in the nurse's office. He stared at the clock the entire time. At one point he remembered his afternoon appointment and the threat of Captain Kusheeno, which loomed over him. Des took the cotton balls out of his nose. It looked like the ointment had done its job and the bleeding stopped. He grabbed a tissue from its dispenser and cleaned the blood from his face.

  Nurse Brightheart came back in. “I told you it would stop. You’re a very impatient boy.”

  “Can I go now?” Des
asked.

  “Yes. The school day is almost done. I informed your last block teacher you had been injured and wouldn’t make it to class. I also told your Nanny, Susan isn’t it?”

  “I’m sixteen. Susan’s not a Nanny.”

  “Then your babysitter.”

  “Again, I’m sixteen. She’s not my babysitter. She’s a family friend who checks in on us while my uncle is away.”

  “Right. I let her know you received a bloody nose today.”

  “Great,” Des said.

  “You can go home if you’d like,” Brightheart said.

  Des collected his stuff and exited the nurse's office. After a quick stop to change out of his gym clothes, he grabbed his backpack. The school bell rang. With his shoulders hunched over, he walked out of the school. He had thirty minutes to get to the Captain and face him again.

  A feeling he didn’t enjoy.

  Chapter Four

  Des walked into the school parking lot, passing a line of cars. They all looked very similar to each other, except the unique seven-digit number painted along the top of the door. He disliked the uniformity of the cars but understood it was better to have them than not. It was a luxury that people who lived on Europa or other stations didn’t have.

  He headed through the parking lot to the sidewalk and the street beyond. Des’s school, a two-story tall building with a gray stucco siding, was in the middle of the Blue Sector, consisting of mainly small houses and townhouses, but there were few tall buildings. Collections of shops stretched along the main roads. Des passed the large ‘Ian Q. Malcolm School’ sign at the end of the school entrance. Des couldn’t remember who Ian Q. Malcolm was or how he was important. He was sure if he asked a teacher, he’d probably be laughed at. He could look it up. The act wouldn’t take him very long to do, but he could never remember when he had the time.

  It’s probably just some old dead dude, Des thought.

  The space station curved gently so that if he looked to the east or to the west, he saw the insides curving up in the distance. It was too far away to see exact details with the naked eye, but he could make out the groups of buildings and trees. From what Des learned in school, the Station was one of the larger ones in orbit around Jupiter. With an inner circumference of seventy-five kilometers, it was so large if Des tried to walk around the inside, it would take him about three days.

  Des strolled down the street. The houses stretching along the road became stores and shops. He investigated the window of a shoe store as he passed, half the shelves were empty. The war put a limit on items which were deemed luxury goods by the government. Shoes for regular people like Des were of limited supply, styles and expensive.

  People walked along the sidewalk with shopping bags in their hands. Despite the rationing and limited quantity, people still managed to buy all the items they needed.

  In the distance, Des observed a couple of older teenagers in the Cadet Uniform his older brother wore. They all wore Kepi Hats, a simple-looking white circular flat-top cap with a small visor. The cadets also wore fancy light blue jackets and white pants with a single matching light blue stripe. Their fancy uniform made them stand out in the crowd.

  He glanced at the cadets for a half a second, spotting his brother amongst them. Des looked away a second too late. Des’s brother, Sheemo saw him, and they made eye contact.

  Des turned around.

  “Des,” Sheemo yelled out from the crowd.

  Des walked away from his brother and into the crowd. He had no interest in talking with him at the moment. He needed to get away and deal with his brother later.

  He used pedestrians to hide from his brother, but Des was tall for his age. It made hiding in a crowd hard at times. Des heard Sheemo call his name a couple more times. Des kept walking down the street. He suppressed the desire to run. If he were to run, then he would have a hard time claiming he hadn’t seen Sheemo.

  Des silently cursed his school uniform. The colors made him an easy target to follow. If he was wearing regular street clothes, then he could disappear into the crowd.

  He weaved through the people, working his way down the street. He craned his head to look for his brother. Des saw the Kepi of his brother and his friends amongst the people following close behind.

  Time to ditch the brother, Des thought.

  Des walked to an elevated rail station, taking the stairs two at a time to get to the top level where the boarding platform was. The platform was packed with people either staring on their phones or listening to music.

  He found a spot away from everyone.

  A train whistled into the station and whined to a stop. The train was five cars long with doors opening to both sides. The once laboratory white train was now a dull and grimy gray. Dents and nicks from overuse and lackluster maintenance pocked the once pristine surface.

  The train was packed full of people. The doors inched open, and a few people squeezed out onto the platform, while more pushed passed those trying to board the vehicle.

  He turned his head. The flat tops of Sheemo’s Kepi appeared from the stairs. Sheemo pointed at Des from the stairs. Sheemo lips moved as if saying something, but Des was too far away to hear anything.

  Des took off his backpack and held it in his hands. Stepping onto the train, he squeezed himself in between two women.

  “Excuse me,” Des said.

  The women were in business suits and skirts. They glared at Des as the doors shut behind him.

  A bang echoed from the window of the train just as the train began to speed down the tracks. Des peeked up at the window. Sheemo stood at the window with a scowl on his face. His glower giving him a hawkish appearance. Sheemo’s mouth was moving, but Des couldn’t hear the words.

  “Sorry,” Des mouthed back. “I can’t hear you.”

  Des held his hand to his ear to make his point and shrugged his shoulders.

  The train pulled away from the station, speeding away.

  In Captain Kusheeno’s office, Des sat in the same uncomfortable plastic chair from the day before. Des glanced around at the pictures on the walls of Captain Kusheeno with other soldiers. Most of them were informal in restaurants and military settings, with happy people toasting each other and smiling. There was one picture of the Captain with a young woman. She was in a formal Cadet Uniform, with a big grin on her face, and a rolled certificate in her hands.

  “Snooping, are you?” Kusheeno asked.

  Kusheeno stood in the doorway to the office. In his hands were a cup of coffee and a thin file folder.

  “Framed pictures are meant to be seen,” Des replied.

  “So, it seems.”

  “Who’s the girl?” Des asked.

  “None of your business, that’s who,” Kusheeno said.

  “Okay,” Des said, shifting in his chair. “No need to get snappy.”

  Kusheeno walked around the office, staring at a piece of plasto-paper clipped to the outside of the file folder. He sat down, fumbling with a couple pieces of paper from his file folder.

  “I’m in a predicament,” Kusheeno said. “A predicament you created.”

  Des raised his brows. “Excuse me? What did I do?”

  “In the station, do you know what my responsibility is?”

  “Bossing people around and making angry noises?”

  Kusheeno’s upper lip quirked upwards. “Funny. I’m responsible for the safe disposition of all civilians in the event of an emergency.”

  “I’m only sixteen, what does that mean?”

  “It means in wartime or attack, it’s my job to make sure civilians like you, make it to Emergency Shelters. I must keep people out of dangerous, clearly marked areas where they’re not authorized to go. It means if there was an internal threat which could cause harm to the citizens here, I must investigate and arrest people if necessary.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It means you were caught snooping around in the Undercroft and recording your findings is my problem. The fact a missile a
ttack came, and you didn’t make it to a shelter is my problem. It also means the data disk you gave me is my problem. Those hundred and thirty-eight entries of you seeing people or weird things in the Undercroft is my problem.”

  “So… I’m your problem?” Des asked.

  “No,” Kusheeno replied, leaning back in his chair, grinning. “You’re my solution.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this.”

  “I didn’t think you would, but my superiors disagree with my handling of this situation. They think I should lock you and your friend up as spies. They think I should kick your brother out of the Military Academy for being your brother. Same with your babysitter Susan, she should lose her college scholarship and go back to Io.”

  “But— I’m just a kid— I’m not a spy—”

  “Of course you are,” Kusheeno paused. “You’re my spy.”

  “What do you mean?” Des squirmed in his seat with sweat pouring down his neck and his hands becoming clammy.

  Kusheeno leaned forward. “Do you like your part-time job at the factory?”

  Des pondered the question for a moment. This was a no-win question and nothing good could come no matter what answer he gave.

  “No,” Des replied. “I hate having to do a job and worry about my homework.”

  “Good. It’s settled. You’re going to be re-assigned to a different job. Since you like to wander around so much, I’m going to assign you to a company called Courier One.”

  “Courier One?” Des asked.

  “Yes. Courier One is a messenger company. They deliver small goods and parcels across the station.”

  “I see.” Des nodded. “A courier can travel across the station to random places and deliver packages without being noticed by anyone to places no one else can.”

  “Exactly,” Kusheeno said, “you’re going to be my spy, and your cover is going to be a courier in that company.”

  Des felt his fate was sealed, he rolled his eyes and rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

  “Do you know why this station is so important?” Kusheeno asked.

  “Something about manufacturing,” Des replied.